“changeMakers”- at first reading, I wondered if the project title was a bit simple and optimistic. Considering the diverse and unique backgrounds of the makers. Given colonialism’s violence. Feeling colonialism’s profound and persistent reverberations around and inside me.
But a citation has been following me around recently. Popping up in texts and podcasts. It is from Octavia Butler’s work of (some say prophetic) fiction, Parable of the Sower (1993). These words have been inviting me to think about what change can mean, and what that meaning can encourage in a praxis of encounter and collaboration.
“All that you touch
You Change.
All that you Change
Changes you.”
Artist, facilitator and theologian Autumn Brown links this Butler citation to (de)colonization. She shares, “What makes colonization is - a colonizer changes, but does not want to be changed in response… I’m going to touch and change this thing, but I will not let myself be changed.”
“All that you touch
You Change.
All that you Change
Changes you.”
The invitation here is to integrate an understanding that interaction will change you and the other in unforeseen ways. You will never be the same again. Accepting and moving with this understanding is a decolonial stance, position, attitude.
With in the context of cultural heritage - the professional setting in which I am currently situated – this acceptance of change can feel uncomfortable. Western museological traditions emphasize object preservation, stable documentation, catalogues, archives, and collections. Fixation. The shelves are full and still the work of preservation and documentation will never be complete.
change(ability) :: (ex)change
What does this look like in practice? As cultural workers and institutions we can conceptualize and embark on meetings, programs, collaborations, co-creation –not just in terms of “joining forces”, “adding value” or “bringing in new voices” – but expecting to actually change each other. Can we account for this in project design and mutual care?
Perhaps I romanticize performance, dance and movement, myself coming from “more tangible” object-based fields of visual art and photography. But my gut tells me that the heritage sector - with all of its institutionally-stated desires for participatory democratic practice - can learn a lot from performance, dance and movement. Practices in which the changeability of real time encounter (*touch) between makers, public, musicians, etc. are built into the process of the work itself.
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“Can we embrace both sides of the coin if the coin is lying on the floor, pressed down on one side?” - Ciro Monoarfa Goudsmit
“The memory of our previous projects remains vivid, and the collaboration has profoundly influenced the way we think and work.” - Harijono Roebana